Over time we get very accustomed to the tools of our trade, our smartphones being one of them. Great for on the go information, and when we're busy with clients it's nice to have that handy feature called voicemail (assuming anyone is actually willing to leave a message any longer!).

Voicemail is supposed to be one of our easier tools to use. Skip, forward, delete as needed. And with a Visual Voicemail type app provided by our carrier, that was all easy peasy.

And sometimes those voice messages get saved over and over because there's something special about them. A message from a loved one that has departed, a friend with a supporting message, something of real value to us.

But time marches on and sometimes a business might just forget about the needs of a customer, and that's not good. That was the case for us recently as our cell phone service provider discontinued support for our Visual Voicemail for our model phones. For them, it was just $2.99 a month less and we still got the "free" basic voicemail, so what's the big deal, right??

Except, it kind of us is a big deal (I know First World problems and in the grand scheme this is a pretty minor roadbump). While our saved messages didn't go away, we'd forgotten just how user UNfriendly basic voicemail is. You can't email them to anyone. You can't see what is in your roster of saved messages. You have to skip through one at a time.

Surely there's an easy way to address this, right? Surely that big V company has a solution, a replacement for what was taken away? Well, actually not. We have three options:

1. Upgrade our phones so we can again be compatible with a Visual Voicemail app because "our current phones are no longer compatible with the signal needed to run that app". And frankly while our phones are 2-3 years old, we're not exactly having a deficiency in capability here, so why spend about $1500 to replace our phones.

2. We can pay a company $5 a message to copy them and convert them to a digital audio file. Why do I have the feeling that said company may be partly or wholly owned by a certain cell phone company?

3. Find some third party solution, and of course they're not going to provide any solution for you.

High and dry, up on the beach, shipwrecked. That's the feeling of some customers after an experience like that one.

Now thanks to the Internet, help is available. We can upload a replacement app such as YouMail (that's free) and actually has even better capability than the Visual Voicemail we paid $2.99 a month for. And YouMail has the capability to block known robocalls and spammers, something our paid service lacked.

And converting those old voicemails into digital files? Again thanks to the Internet, a solution for that problem was also found. Another app to record the voicemails, click save, and then email. And once we finish those message transfers, we'll install YouMail on that phone and have full capability.

Yep, we're getting off the beach and going back to sea again, without the help of our cell phone provider.

Are you wondering if there's some tie in to real estate here? Actually there is!

If you hire us to help you buy or sell a home, we promise not to leave you high and dry. If we say we're going to do something, we're going to do it. We don't promise you one thing and deliver another, or change the rules of the game on you mid-contract. That's not how WE do business.

Other questions about buying or selling Warren County area homes? We're easy to reach at 513-520-5305 or email Liz@LizSpear.com.